Execs Andrew Rona, Alex Heineman Exiting Silver Pictures

EXCLUSIVE: Big shakeup at Silver Pictures, Joel Silver‘s producing label. I’m told that his two top creative executives — president Andrew Rona and EVP Alex Heineman — have just left the company. Both Rona and Heineman came there after Universal sold Rogue Pictures to Relativity and Rona, who ran that label, moved on. He took the Silver Pictures job after longtime head Susan Downey exited to partner in Team Downey with husband Robert Downey Jr. I’m told that Rona and Heineman intend to start their own production shingle. A spokesperson for Silver confirmed the moves, and said Silver wished them well as they set up their new venture.

Silver kept a prolific pace even as the producing great transitioned from a longtime Warner Bros producing deal to being backed by StudioCanal and distributing through Universal Pictures. During Rona and Heineman’s time at Silver, the label produce 12 movies including the upcoming Liam Neeson-starrer Non-Stop, Project X with Todd Phillips, and numerous others. Rona is producer and Heineman co-producer on the upcoming Pierre Morel-directed Gunman, which stars Sean Penn and Javier Bardem.

Rona spent 15 years with Bob and Harvey Weinstein, and ran Dimension Films for five years with current New Regency prexy/CEO Brad Weston. Heineman was Rona’s assistant at Dimension and became an exec at Rogue Pictures and they’ve been together 12 years. Studio-based production deals are hard to come by these days, but independent financing is not. While Rona and Heineman are low-key guys, they are certainly prolific and no-nonsense, so I would not be surprised to see their new company take root fast. First order of business, fellas: how about some headshots?